Still Life With Crows (10 page)

The Mounds were just ahead.

There were three of them, low and broad, arranged in a triangle, rising twenty feet above the surrounding land. The flanks of two of the mounds had worn away, exposing limestone ledges and heavy boulders underneath. The cottonwood trees were thicker here and the shadows were very deep.

Pendergast listened to the sounds of the August night. A chorus of insects trilled furiously. Blinking fireflies drifted among the silent trunks, their streaked lights mingling with the distant heat lightning that flickered to the north. A crescent moon hung just above the horizon, both horns pointed upward.

Pendergast remained motionless. The night sky was now blossoming with stars. He began to hear other sounds: the rustlings and scratchings of small animals, the flutterings of birds. A pair of close-set eyes glowed briefly in the dark. Down by the creek a coyote howled, and at the very edge of hearing, from the direction of the town, a dog barked a reply. The sliver of moon cast just enough light to see by. Night crickets began to chirrup, first one, then others, the sounds rising from the tall grass.

At last, Pendergast moved forward, toward the three dark mounds. He walked slowly and silently, his foot crackling a single leaf. The crickets fell silent. Pendergast waited until, one by one, they resumed their calls. Then he moved on until he reached the base of the first mound. Here he knelt silently, brushed aside the dead leaves, and dug his hand into the soil. He removed a fistful, rolled it between his hands, and inhaled.

Different soils had distinctive smells. This, he confirmed, was the same soil as that found on the tools in the back of Swegg’s car. The sheriff had been right: she had been digging for relics in the Mounds. He pinched some earth into a small glass test tube, stoppered it, and slid it into the pocket of his suit jacket.

Pendergast rose again. The moon had disappeared below the horizon. The fireflies had stopped blinking; the heat lightning grew less frequent, then ceased altogether. A profound darkness slowly enveloped the Mounds.

Pendergast moved past the first mound, then the second, until he stood at their center, three dark swellings growing gradually indistinguishable. Now the darkness was complete.

Still, Pendergast waited. A half hour passed. An hour.

And then, suddenly, the crickets fell silent.

Pendergast waited for them to start their chorus again. His muscles gathered, tensing. He could feel a presence in the dark to his right: a presence of great stealth. It was moving very silently—too silently even for his highly sensitive ears. But the crickets could feel vibrations in the ground that humans could not. The crickets knew.

He waited, tensed, until the presence was no more than five feet away. It had stopped. It, too, was waiting.

One by one the crickets resumed their chirruping. But Pendergast wasn’t fooled. The presence was still there. Waiting.

And now, the presence moved again. Ever so slowly, it was coming closer. One step, two steps, until it was close enough to touch.

In a single movement, Pendergast dropped to one side while pulling his flashlight and gun and aiming both toward the figure. The beam of the light illuminated a wild-looking man crouching in the dirt, a double-barreled shotgun pointing to the spot where Pendergast had been standing a moment before. The gun went off with a great roar and the man staggered back, shrieking unintelligibly, and in that instant Pendergast was on top of him. Another moment and the shotgun was on the ground and the man was doubled over, held in a hammerlock, Pendergast’s gun pressed against his temple. He struggled a moment, then went limp.

Pendergast loosened his grip and the man fell to the ground. He lay there, an extraordinary figure dressed in buckskin rags, a string of bloody squirrels slung around his shoulder. A giant handmade knife was tucked into his belt. His feet were bare, the soles broad and dirty. Two very small eyes were pushed like raisins into a face so wrinkled it seemed to belong to a man beyond time itself. And yet his physique, his glossy and extraordinarily long black hair and beard, told of a robust individual no more than fifty years of age.

“It is inadvisable to fire a gun in haste,” said Pendergast, standing over the man. “You could have hurt someone.”

“Who the hell are you?” the man shrilled from the ground.

“The very question I was going to ask you.”

The man swallowed, recovering slightly, and sat up. “Get your goddamned light out of my face.”

Pendergast lowered the light.

“Now who the deuce do you think you are, scaring decent people half to death?”

“We have yet to establish decency,” said Pendergast. “Pray rise and identify yourself.”

“Mister, you can pray all you like and it don’t mean shit.” He rose to his feet anyway, brushing the leaves and twigs out of his beard and hair. Then he hawked up an enormous gob of phlegm and shot it into the darkness. He wiped his beard and mouth with a filthy hand, front and back, and spat again.

Pendergast removed his shield and passed it before the man’s face.

The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed again. He laughed. “FBI? Never would’ve guessed it.”

“Special Agent Pendergast.” He closed the leather case with a snap and it disappeared into his jacket.

“I don’t talk to FBI.”

“Before you make any more rash declarations which will cause you to lose face later, you should know you have a choice. You can have an informal chat with me here . . .” He paused.

“Or?”

Pendergast smiled suddenly, his thin lips stretching to expose a row of perfect white teeth. But the effect, in the glow of the flashlight, was anything but friendly.

The man removed a twisted chaw from his pocket, screwed a piece off, and packed it into his cheek. “Shit,” he said, and spat.

“May I ask your name?” Pendergast asked.

The silence stretched on for a minute, then two.

“Hell,” the man said at last. “I guess having a name’s no crime, is it? Gasparilla. Lonny Gasparilla. Can I have my gun back now?”

“We shall see.” Pendergast bobbed the beam of his light toward the bloody squirrels. “Is that what you were doing up here? Hunting?”

“I ain’t hanging around the Mounds for the view.”

“Do you have a residence nearby, Mr. Gasparilla?”

The man barked a laugh. “That’s a funny one.” Again, when there was no reply from Pendergast, he jerked his head to one side. “I’m camped over yonder.”

Pendergast picked up the shotgun, broke it open, ejected the spent shells, and handed it empty to Gasparilla. “Show me, if you please.”

Five minutes of walking brought them to the edge of the trees and into the sea of corn. Gasparilla ducked into a row and they followed it down a dusty, beaten path. A few more minutes brought them to a cottonwood grove that lined the banks of Medicine Creek. The air here smelled of moisture, and there was the faint sound of water purling over a bed of sand. Ahead was the reddish glow of a campfire, built against a clay bank. A big iron pot sat atop the fire, bubbling, smelling of onions, potatoes, and peppers.

Gasparilla picked some pieces of wood off a pile and banked them beside the coals. Flames rose, illuminating the little campsite. There was a greasy-looking tent, a log for a seat, an abandoned wooden door set on more logs to make a table.

Gasparilla plucked the bundle of squirrels off his shoulder and dropped them on the makeshift table. Then he took out his knife and went to work, slicing one open, pulling out the guts and tossing them aside. And then, with one sharp tug, he tore off the skin. A series of swift chops took off the head, paws, and tail; a few more hacks quartered the animal, and it went into the simmering pot. The process for each squirrel took less than twenty seconds.

“What are you doing here?” Pendergast asked.

“On tour,” said the man.

“Tour?”

“Tool sharpening. Make two rounds of my territory in the warm months. Go south to Brownsville for the winter. You got it, I sharpen it, from chainsaws to combine rotors.”

“How do you get around?”

“Pickup.”

“Where’s it parked?”

Gasparilla gave a final savage chop, tossed the last squirrel into the pot. Then he jerked his head toward the road. “Over there, if you want to check it out.”

“I plan to.”

“They know me in town. I ain’t never been on the wrong side of the law, you can ask the sheriff. I work for a living, same as you. Only I don’t go sneaking around in the dark, shining lights in people’s faces and scaring them half to death.” He threw some parched lima beans into the pot.

“If, as you say, they know you in town, why do you camp out here?”

“I like a little elbow room.”

“And the bare feet?”

“Huh?”

Pendergast shone his light at the man’s filthy toes.

“Shoes are expensive.” He rummaged in a pocket, pulled out the chaw of tobacco, screwed off another piece, and shoved it in his cheek. “What’s an FBI man doing out here?” he asked, poking his cheek with a finger, adjusting the chaw to his satisfaction.

“I imagine you could guess the answer to that question, Mr. Gasparilla.”

The man gave him a sidelong glance but did not reply.

“She was digging up in the Mounds, wasn’t she?” Pendergast asked at last.

Gasparilla spat. “Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Don’t know.”

“Did she find anything?”

He shrugged. “It ain’t the first time there’s been digging in the Mounds. I don’t pay much attention to it. When I’m here I only go up there to hunt. I don’t mess around with the dead.”

“Are there burials in the Mounds?”

“So they say. There was also a massacre up there once. That’s all I know and all I want to know. The place gives me the creeps. I wouldn’t go up there except that’s where all the squirrels are.”

“I’ve heard talk of some legend associated with the place. The ‘curse of the Forty-Fives,’ I believe.”

Gasparilla said nothing, and for a long time the camp was quiet. He stirred the pot with a stick, occasionally darting glances at Pendergast.

“The murder occurred three nights ago, during the new moon. Did you see or hear anything?”

Gasparilla spat again. “Nothing.”

“What were your movements that evening, Mr. Gasparilla?”

Gasparilla kept stirring. “If you’re hinting that I killed that woman, then I just about figure this conversation’s over, mister.”

“I’d say it’s just begun.”

“Don’t get snippy with me. I never killed nobody in my life.”

“Then you should have no objection to detailing your movements that day.”

“That was my second day here at Medicine Creek. I hunted up at the Mounds late that afternoon. She was there, digging. I came back here at sunset, spent the night in camp.”

“Did she see you?”

“Did
you
see me?”

“Where was she digging, exactly?”

“All over. I gave her a wide berth. I know trouble when I see it.” Gasparilla gave the stewpot a brisk stir, brought out an enameled tin bowl and a battered spoon, ladled some stew into it. He scooped up a spoonful, blew on it, took a bite, dug the spoon in again. Then he stopped.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting a bowl.”

“I would not object.”

Wordlessly, he brought out a second bowl, held it up before Pendergast.

“Thank you.” Pendergast helped himself to the pot, took a taste of the stew. “Burgoo, I believe?”

Gasparilla nodded and stuffed a goodly amount in his mouth, juice dribbling down into his tangled black beard. He chewed loudly, spat out a few bones, swallowed. He wiped his mouth with his hand, then wiped his hand on his beard.

They finished their stew in silence. Gasparilla stacked the bowls, leaned back, took out the plug of tobacco. “And now, mister, if you got what you’re looking for, I hope you’ll be about your business. I like a quiet evening.”

Pendergast rose. “Mr. Gasparilla, I will leave you in peace. But first, if there’s anything you’d care to add, I would advise you to tell it to me now, rather than waiting for me to discover it myself.”

Gasparilla spat a brown rope of saliva in the direction of the creek. “I don’t particularly care to get involved.”

“You’re already involved. Either you are the murderer, Mr. Gasparilla, or your continued presence here puts you in grave danger. One or the other.”

Gasparilla grunted, bit off another plug, spat again. Then he asked, “Do you believe in the devil?”

Pendergast regarded the man, his pale eyes glinting in the firelight. “Why do you ask, Mr. Gasparilla?”

“Because I don’t. As far as I’m concerned, the devil’s a lot of preacher bullshit. But there
is
evil on this earth, Mr. FBI Agent. You asked about the curse of the Forty-Fives. Well, you might as well get on home right now, because you ain’t never going to get to the bottom of
that.
The evil I’m talking about, most of the time it’s got an explanation. But some of the time”—Gasparilla spat more tobacco juice, then leaned forward as if to impart a secret—“some of the time, it
just don’t.
”

Thirteen

S
mit Ludwig pulled his AMC Pacer into the parking lot of Calvary Lutheran, which was wall to wall with hot cars glittering in the August sun. A big placard, already curling in the intense heat, was affixed to the front of the neat, redbrick church. It announced, 33
RD ANNUAL BAKED TURKEY SUPPER SOCIABLE
. Another, even bigger placard beside it burbled,
MEDICINE CREEK WELCOMES PROFESSOR STANTON CHAUNCY
!!! There was a touch of desperation, Ludwig thought, to the three exclamation marks. He parked his car at the far end of the lot, got out, dabbed the back of his neck with a handkerchief, and walked up to the entrance.

Then he paused, hand on the door. Over the years, the town had gotten used to his nice human interest stories; to his uncontroversial coverage of church and school, 4-H and Boy Scouts and Future Farmers of America. They had gotten used to the
Courier
glossing over and even ignoring the petty crimes of their children—the occasional joyrides, the drunken parties. They had taken for granted his downplaying of the inspection problems at Gro-Bain, the rising injury rate at the plant, the union troubles. They had forgotten that the
Courier
was a newspaper, not the town PR organ. Yesterday, all that had changed. The
Courier
had become a real paper, reporting real news.